Willem Frederik Veltman, taught for many years at the Waldorf School in The Hague, Netherlands. In Hellas he offers us a review of all the principal aspects of ancient Greek culture. He describes the fundamental aspect of that culture of balance: balance between heaven and earth, between the divine and the human, balance in society where everything needs to have its proper place resulting in righteousness, and the role of virtue as the state of balance between two extremes.

He sketches the evolution of the world of the gods with its three generations, the attitude of the Greek toward these gods, and the way spiritual beings worked through human beings to found this civilization. A long chapter is devoted to the Greek arts of architecture, sculpture and painting.

He then takes the reader to visit the principal cities where in each place he describes the history and myths that are living there: Athens with Cecrops and Theseus, Thebes with Cadmus, Mycenae with Agamemnon and the Trojan War, Thessaly with Jason, Macedonia with Alexander, and many more. And on the way he uses the revelations of spiritual science to indicate the significance of all these stories and events as indicators of the evolution of consciousness and the critical role this civilization has played in Europe. One chapter is devoted to a most readable description of the development of Greek philosophy.

We heartily recommend this book to Waldorf teachers preparing for the 5th and 10th grade Greek epochs, but also to anyone interested in the culture that laid the foundation for all of Western culture. The language is modern and easy to read and the book is richly illustrated with excellent pictures.

Available in paperback from Waldorf Publications